


Winter Ghosts

by thegrumblingirl



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Angst, Dorian is having one of his own, John is having an Almost Human Identity Crisis, M/M, Song fic, and John is definitely not counting the days until he comes back, nope not at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 21:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘I’m almost human. Same as you.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prolonged Maintenance

**Author's Note:**

> This is getting out of hand. I blame Karl and Michael.  
> Based on JBM's _Winter Ghosts_. Listen to it [on my tumblr](http://screwtheprinceimtakingthehorse.tumblr.com/post/52890600488), if you like, it's gorgeous.  
>  Disclaimer: I own nothing, I get nothing. I'm also not completely nuts for doing this. Right?
> 
> Second chapter should be up in a couple of days.

Prolonged maintenance: Day 17.

John definitely wasn’t counting. During the day, he went to work, unwilling to take up the Captain’s offer of a week’s leave of absence to “sort himself out.” He didn’t need to sort himself out. What he needed was work and keeping safe a public that couldn’t give two shits about him. He was temporarily partnered with one of the regular synthetics, and he spent equal amounts of time hating his leg and counting to fifty to avoid pushing another robot out of the car at full speed.

He definitely wasn’t counting.

Prolonged maintenance, Rudy had called it, and said, “This is going to take a while to fix.”

“Please leave,” was the last thing Dorian had said to him, barely keeping his circuits together enough to focus on him before he shut down and Rudy took over, all the while glaring at him. John had left.

During the night, his mind kept repeating the words until he passed out either from exhaustion, alcohol, or his illegal meds. (Or a combination of all three.) ‘Please leave.’

There were other words, too; some Dorian’s, some his own. He wrote his report on how Dorian had been damaged through a haze of those words, and found that, if you knew to rearrange them, the letters spelt, ‘It’s my fault.’ He didn’t put that in the report, though. He filed the appropriate forms for robot damage, and then realised that he hadn’t written ‘damaged,’ as he would have used to say, because Dorian was a fucking robot and ‘Dorian’ wasn’t even his real name.

His report said ‘injured.’ His partner had been injured.

What he didn’t put in the report was that they’d had a fight before everything had gone to shit, and that that was the reason why Dorian had been hit. They’d been out of sync, and John had been angry and stupid and cursing his leg every step of the way. Cursing Dorian, too. And then Dorian had saved his life anyway.

_By the window up in the bedroom, I can hear the storm come_  
 _From many roads away_  
 _And it brings the night_

‘I wish I’d never met you!’

‘If you’d never met me, you’d already be dead!’

‘Now you’re getting it!’ John had slammed the glass of water onto the table in mock triumph.

(How had they got there? At all?)

Dorian had regarded him, and slowly the anger in his eyes had given way to resignation.

‘What?’ John had demanded.

‘You hate robots, you hate the part of you that makes you like them. But, really, what you can’t stand is being like _me_. You’d like being like them. Empty. Not feeling. That’s what you’re scared of, isn’t it?’

John had pushed himself away from the table, into Dorian’s space, sneering. ‘Empty, not-feeling robots were what betrayed me, betrayed my partner. I don’t want anything to do with them. With _you_.’

‘You don’t remember,’ Dorian had continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘You don’t remember who you were, not really, but you remember what you hated, and that hatred became you. And now that... abyss is all that’s left of you. And you’re scared because you don’t know how to get out.’

‘Don’t fucking analyse me, Android. I’m not some dead guy’s tissue sample that you can inject into your neck and let your circuits go to work. You don’t _know_ what it’s like to be human.’

(How had he let himself say all of that?)

‘I’m almost human. Same as you.’

That was when they’d got the call.

John vaguely remembered what had caused the argument. He clearly remembered how he’d once told Dorian that he ‘wasn’t like the others.’ He remembered how they’d changed. He remembered thinking that they were good together. And that had been his cue to ruin it.

_If the ones who died sit around me, I hope they're going to stay_   
_And that maybe you'll arrive_   
_In the rain that's rolling in_   
_These summer nights_   
_I feel you on my skin_

He definitely wasn’t counting.


	2. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now he was alone.
> 
> "John."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, the second (and final) chapter, much sooner than I'd thought.... these two are driving me crazy already. I might continue this and write a series when the show actually airs. I guess, if anyone's interested, let me know?

When he'd come home, the glass had still been there. He often swallowed his meds dry, Dorian always nagged him not to, so he'd poured himself that damn glass of water; no matter how pissed he'd been that day. (Maybe he’d done it out of spite.)

And now, Dorian had been gone for seventeen days, and John didn't know if he was coming back. Rudy had left him a message at work on day two.

"He'll be fine, but I need to keep him in for maintenance a bit longer; there are parts I don't have on hand right now. You could come in next week."

John remembered the look on Dorian's face as he told him to leave and replied, "It's his decision. Call me when he's ready."

Clearly, Dorian wasn't ready yet.

_Winter came as a load, frozen down to the bone_   
_I lived here half asleep_   
_Walking out to the road, empty, drunk and alone_   
_In hopes you'd come to me_

Hours later, John was drunk and tired, and the streets were empty. He threw on his jacket and went outside, breathing in the icy wind that, for the moment, did little to sober him up. Predictably, he was too drunk to care.

Maybe, if he froze to death out here, Dorian would come back. John felt the clammy cold reaching up his right leg, his right leg that wasn't really there. The leg that made him like them. Like Dorian. The leg that didn't twinge as much when Dorian had his back. He thought of the summer, of the first time Dorian had nearly been blasted to bits for good (not entirely John's fault that time), and of the first time that John had not moved from the wheely chair next to the rack in Rudy's lab, waiting for Dorian to come back round. (Come around, not 'reboot.') He remembered wanting to take his hand; would've done it if Rudy hadn't come back in just then. And then, Dorian had woken up and the thought was gone.

Only to return in the fall. And now, it was still there.

John wasn't sure whether he was any closer to accepting that than he'd been eighteen days ago, when he'd blown up at Dorian for... being Dorian. They'd not gotten what they'd wanted to hear from a suspect, and before John could use some of his powers of 'persuasion,' the Captain had terminated the interview and sent them both home. John had just driven them to his apartment without thinking, and it wasn't until they'd been sitting on the sofa, John uselessly massaging his metal leg propped up on the table that he'd realised.

'I didn't ask where to drop you off.'

Dorian had recognised this for the apology it was and shrugged. 'That's ok.' Then, his mouth broke into a grin, John narrowed his eyes. 'You know, you can just tell me if you'd rather not be alone.'

'Synthetic off,' John had growled; but he'd been teasing, by then, and Dorian had stopped even pretending to be insulted by the term. Instead, he leaned back on the couch, and what happened next had, concisely put, destroyed John's life.

He'd raised his arm, putting it on the backrest behind them, and put his hand on John's neck, gently tracing circles with his thumb. John had frozen mid-movement, opening his mouth and closing it when no words came out, staring at Dorian out of the corner of his eye. Then, he'd finally reared up, getting away from the couch, putting some distance between them.

'What the fuck are you doing?'

Dorian hadn't moved an inch, his hand still up in the air -- same as John's temper. 'Do we really have to _argue_ about this?'

John had refused to acknowledge that, now that he'd felt it, he craved that touch to ground him. 'Yes, we do. What did you think you were doing?'

'I was tired of waiting for you to stop sabotaging yourself.'

'So you just start grabbing me? What's that, part of your programming? Pet your human when it's anxious? Did Rudy screw up your circuits?'

'I'm acting of my own free will, John.'

'You don't know what that is!'

'I do, as well as I know you. And you need me. So I'm here.'

'I don't need a _robot_ ,' John had spat and stalked off to the kitchen.

And now, he was freezing his ass off, drunk and alone, but the hollowness wouldn't come. The guilt wouldn't go away, and as he wished for emptiness, for all the pain to go away, he feared what would become of him if it did. He didn't want to be an MX. He didn't want an MX, period. He just wanted Dorian.

What if Dorian was going to request to be decommissioned again? John hunched his shoulders at the thought as he trudged on. Was permanent stand-by mode really better than this?

Than John?

_Before the morning_   
_Before you're running_   
_But why are you running?_   
_Where are you running?_   
_Home?_

John had a home, even though he never went there anymore. But he had one, a place he came from. Dorian... had a plastic bag. Where did he go when he shut down? He didn't sleep, it wasn't a coma like John's, it was just... nothing. Was that home? If John had wanted to run, he'd have known where.

He ignored the thought that, now, running meant going wherever Dorian was; because Dorian protected him when no-one else would. They were reckless together, did the things that others wouldn't because the robots told them it was unadvisable. Dorian had stayed, because John had wanted him to.

And now he was alone.

"John."

He stopped dead in his tracks, but didn't turn. Then, there was a hand on his arm.

"Come on. Let's get you home."

They walked back in silence, the air brittle around them. Dorian had wrapped his arm around John's shoulders, and John felt a warmth at his side that he knew wasn't actually there.

In his apartment, John practically fell onto the sofa, Dorian sat down next to him, close enough for their shoulders to touch. John turned to look at him, but didn't move away.

"Why did you come back?" Before Dorian could draw breath to answer, he continued, "I know I don't deserve it."

Dorian shot him a look. "Maybe you do. You told me once that I wasn't like the others. But I'm still not quite human, either."

"Neither am I," John interrupted him, but Dorian held up a hand.

"Let me finish. At the beginning, you didn't want me; and by robot standards, I’m considered faulty. You didn't want an MX, but you didn't want me, either. And for a while, I thought you just wanted someone human, but then I realised that... you just didn't want anyone, you wanted to be alone, because you _were_ alone. You were an in-between. Not a robot, but not quite human anymore, either; and you cling to your humanity because you hate the fact that robot parts saved your life. But you can't deny the facts, for all that you bullshit your way through life, and a human partner would have constantly reminded you of what you used to be.

"You see, I'm an in-between, too. I'm a synthetic, but I'm human. When I saved your life, I _chose_ to be human. I don't belong to them, maybe, nor to the robots. But I belong with you. Because you're the only one I know who gets it."

"So you're here because you're out of options?" John couldn't help how flat his voice sounded at that.

Dorian smiled, the bastard. "No. I'm here because I want to. We’re both and neither, John. That gives us all the options we need, even though sometimes we’re upside-down. When you told me I'm not like the others, you didn't alienate me. You accepted that what I am is real, and you told me that the choices I made were the right ones. That's why I'm here."

"How come you're always so calm and I'm the one freaking out?"

"That's just who we are." John blinked at him. "But if it helps, I was anything but calm when I woke up and you weren't there, waiting for me."

"You told me to leave."

"I didn't think you'd listen to me. That's how I knew."

Frankly, John had heard enough. He pulled his legs under himself and scooted closer to Dorian, who smiled again (damn him) and reached out to tug at his shirt-clad shoulder. (John didn't even remember taking the jacket off.) John was too drained to fight it or even think about it, so he listed sideways and let Dorian pull him down so he was practically draped across him.

_Once I knew you  
Lay my head upon your lap_

"I knew you once," he murmured. Dorian hummed quietly to signal he was listening. "I knew _who_ I was because I knew _what_ I didn't want to be. And I knew what you were, and I refused to think about who you were. But then I did, you made me, and nothing made sense anymore."

_Once I knew you  
In your eyes a calming light_

“How’d you find me?”

“You weren’t home, you weren’t at work. So I just walked.”

“What’s it like, shutting down?”

“Dark. There’s nothing, just... missing parts.”

_Once I knew you  
And your hand upon my back_

He'd known who he was, and he'd thought he knew Dorian. Knew their places. There'd been him, and there'd been them. And then, suddenly, there'd been someone who'd given him the chance to get to know them; and he'd found himself wanting to.

How do you cope with falling in love with what you need to hate to know who you are?

_Once I knew you  
In a life ain't coming back_

But that life was gone, it was over. It would never be that simple again; him and them and nothing in between. And perhaps that wasn’t so bad. John closed his eyes, Dorian’s hand in his hair, and his synthetic leg, still cold from the freezing air outside, was a winter ghost between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading and not putting me in a straightjacket ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted on ff.net.


End file.
